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Chris Corner Turns to PledgeMusic to Fund New IAMX Album, Hits Goal in Under an Hour

Crowd-funding platform PledgeMusic is gaining a lot of steam with musicians. Helen Marnie from Ladytron just raised the money for her first solo album through the site. LCD Soundsystem and Esthero are getting closer to their goals. And, today, Chris Corner made waves by hitting his goal in less than one hour of clicking his campaign live. The news came via a press release earlier this afternoon.

Corner is the mind behind IAMX. He’s also a former member of Sneaker Pimps. (And, for you Mighty Boosh trivia buffs, he appeared on the cover of Mod Monthly in “Jungle,” aka the episode with the Mod Wolves.) Right now, he’s working on his fifth IAMX studio album. Corner, who typically self-produces IAMX, is working with Jim Abbiss in the studio. Abbiss’ credits include Sneaker Pimps debut album, Becoming X, as well as albums from Editors, Temper Trap, Ladytron, Arctic Monkeys and Adele. There will also be a behind-the-scenes documentary accompanying the release. You can see what he’s doing in the video above and related footage available on his YouTube channel.

Corner notes that the money raised will go to finishing the album, promoting and distributing said album and tours in Europe in the U.S. After the goal is met, 5% of the proceeds will be donated to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Right now, Corner’s campaign page still shows that the project is 99% funded, but that should be amended “very soon,” according to a post on the site. Unlike Kickstarter and Indie Go Go, MusicPledge doesn’t show the monetary goal or how much has been raised. However, here is some info I could gather from the site.

— As of 4 p.m. PST, 752 people pledged. When I first started writing this post a half-hour ago, 739 people pledged, so the numbers are still climbing.
— A minimum pledge is €10 or $13.
— Premiums are already selling out both on the low and high ends of the pledge spectrum.
— There are still 138 days left in the campaign.

This is all pretty amazing, but maybe it’s not entirely unexpected. Having both interviewed Corner (for LA Weekly, back in 2009) and seen him live, I can attest to the sort of devotion to IAMX that exists within his fanbase. Corner is a popular guy. IAMX is beloved by a lot of people. On top of that, he offered a lot of really cool, personalized incentives, like handwritten lyric sheets (€80 or $130) and a “golden ticket” that will get you into all of his headlining gigs in 2013 (€150 or $194), in addition to copies of the album on MP3, CD and/or vinyl. Someone already pledged for his bass and guitar (€500 or $645 each).

This might just be the next big crowd-funded album success story. That’s exciting, as Corner certainly deserves it.

Update (10/02, 12:45 p.m.): This is the second day of IAMX PledgeMusic campaign and the project is now 276% funded. This is amazing. Congratulations to Chris Corner.